Chapter 8. Using Pivot Charts

In This Chapter

Creating a pivot chart from a pivot table
Specifying pivot chart commands
Adding Excel's new slicers feature
Viewing pivot chart examples

Chapter 7 introduces you to pivot tables. And this chapter covers a spin-off feature: pivot charts. The discussion here assumes that you're familiar with the material presented in Chapter 7.

A pivot chart is a graphical representation of a data summary displayed in a pivot table. A pivot chart is always based on a pivot table. Excel lets you create a pivot table and a pivot chart at the same time, but you can't create a pivot chart without a pivot table.

Getting Started with Pivot Charts

If you're familiar with creating charts in Excel, you'll have no problem creating and customizing pivot charts. Most of Excel's charting features are available in a pivot chart. But, as you'll see, pivot charts enable a few extra tricks — most notably, the ability to filter the data that's displayed.

Note

For an introduction to Excel chart basics, refer to Part II.

Creating a pivot chart

Excel provides three ways to create a pivot chart:

Select any cell in an existing pivot table and choose PivotTable Tools
Choose Insert
Select any cell in an existing pivot table and select a chart type from the Insert